intuitive brings iVector into AI era with universal API

Paul Nixon, founder and CEO of intuitive, talks with Travolution about the launch of its new API and shares his worldview on the theory and practice of software development in the era of AI.

UK-based travel technology provider intuitive is launching a major restructuring of its core platform architecture which, according to founder and CEO Paul Nixon, “offers a best of both world’s proposition”.

These worlds are the 20-plus year footprint of its iVector reservation platform and the increasing availability of enterprise-grade AI-enabled software development tools.

The aim is to expose everything from the iVector platform through an API, according to Nixon. “We kicked off the build mid-January. By the end of March, we had an MVP with over 3,000 API calls and user interactions and by the end of this quarter we’ll have version 1.1 of that,” he said.

The new API has been built using AWS API Gateway Technology. Travel companies using      iVector can benefit from AWS’ interoperable and standards-based architecture, allowing them to build their own products and/or features on top of iVector, taking advantage of new AI-enabled coding tools which, Nixon claimed, means “everybody can now write software”.

intuitive have been building proprietary travel technology for more than two decades, including one of the earliest examples of an XML gateway in travel. He used the metaphor of a motorway to describe his overview on the history of software development and where the new iVector API sits in this timeline.

“The inside lane is how we used to write software until relatively recently,” he explained. “It was hard. You needed expensive, clever people. There were bugs. Then, 2024 into 2025 we moved into the middle lane where AI would help to write the software. At this stage we’re seeing productivity increases of around 20%, maybe more if you’re really flying. 

“Now, we’re in the fast lane. We’ve      done several projects where genuinely you can go fifty times faster. I've done things myself that would have taken months in hours, and I've done things that would have taken years in weeks. This changes everything.

“My job as CEO now is facilitating the team here and the customers into that fast lane,” he explained, adding “this opens up three routes: intuitive's developers building on behalf of clients, customers developing their own solutions directly on the API, or a collaborative approach between them”.

However, Nixon was keen to highlight that the new API maintains the functionality and features of the iVector platform     . “We've been building iVector for 23 years. There are 2,500 tables, 6,000 stored procedures, 700 modules, over 250 live      supplier connections. It’s an incredibly comprehensive set of features designed for travel – search and book, contracting, inventory management, pricing, packaging, rich content, back-office, accounting and reporting.

“I have to acknowledge that the effort needed to replicate all of that is radically less than it would have been in the past, but even so, there's not yet any sign of AI-native entrants directly in our space.”

Throughout its lifetime, automation has been a focus for iVector. The new API offers the chance to ramp this up. “The new target is how can we offload to AI some or all of the features that still involve humans having to think.” He used the example of how some contracted hotels still use emails to update intermediaries on rates and availability, emails which must be read by a person and manually inputted into the system. “We are currently building a module that will pick up new emails landing in an inbox and process them – we will start with humans verifying that the AI has got it right, the AI will learn from this and in time the process will be fully automated”.

Looking ahead, Nixon believes the Universal API positions iVector for whatever comes next. “It's agnostic to future standards and technologies. Whether it's MCP servers or something entirely different, they can be built on top of the API. That's the benefit of creating an open, extensible foundation.”

He concluded: “AI is like having a superpower, which is really exciting, but what happens when everyone else is going to have the same superpower? Our strategy in this context is to sync the accurate and comprehensive model of iVector with the benefit of AI native software development. The new API is the bridge between those two things.”